Obama Social Security Gun Grab Reversed by Congress?

Ma’am, in 1999, my now-late father, who at the time was a 79-year-old former U.S. military lifer who retired as a USAF squadron commander, had me assist him in establishing a trust with which this son was eventually entrusted in its administration. One of the actions taken, of course, was to place income into his trust which, by another name, seemed possibly defined as “representative payee.”

Causing specific angst during the trust’s establishment was the Social Security Administration’s language defining a representative payee, in part stating it as that which receives “… the Social Security or SSI benefits for anyone who can’t manage or direct the management of his or her benefits.”

Specifically troubling were, “…can’t manage or direct…”

If you will, please remember that all these other matters, specifically those related to a president yet to be elected to that office, had yet to take place. However, “representative payee” was “there” and therefore, despite the timeframe differences, in our minds there existed troubling aspects relating to “can’t” – a synonym for which is “unable.”

At the very heart of an irrevocable trust is the inviolability of that trust’s beneficiary/ies to in any way direct operations of that irrevocable trust. Furthermore, by law, an irrevocable trust cannot be revoked. Thus, when in place, my father would not be able to do a darn thing about what I, as the trust’s administrator, can do with “his” money regardless of source.

Not wishing to tangentially stray far from the main point herein: Whoever invokes an irrevocable trust for whatever purpose will, at the moment of a pen’s completed stroke, thus surrenders any and all rights to the end results of whatever he or she constituted. (Which, BTW, is a good counterpoint to those who see the U.S. Constitution as being a changeable entity. The “why” of such is another, rather long subject mostly dealing with “how law works.”)

Such permanency stresses the need for a trust to be designed, even undertaken with great care. Whatever becomes a part of an irrevocable trust, be it irreplaceable paintings, a pledge of money or assets to build a museum in which to house those painting or, in our case, a means by which a father was able, among other specifics, to establish the trust’s representatives or their succession should any be incapacitated while the trust was in force. To ensure his safe future, even should he be mentally disabled, my father took the necessary steps to place himself at what might be the mercy of others, even though the trust didn’t allow its administrators to undertake any actions outside of basic fiduciary responsibilities outlined therein.

Even though we satisfactorily received assurances – eventually written assurances because too many Social Security representatives provided often contradictory and diametric answers over the telephone – our situation was outside of the “representative payee” box (I know, highly technical law talk, huh?) and that we could further pursue the trust’s completion absent of interference from the SSA on the “representative payee” aspect.

All things considered and particularly noting the SSA is an administrative body for which Constitutional rules don’t necessarily apply, we maintained vigilance in looking over our shoulders because governments, even ours, sometimes do the type of things that can flat-out ruin a life; whether intentionally or unintentionally, the deed done is difficult – at best – to unwind.

Looking over one’s shoulder proved unnecessary not long after the trust’s filings, because in 2001 my father had a massive stroke that destroyed 60-percent of his brain. He lived another six months, vacillating between lucidity and stupidity. It was a tough time, emotionally, but the fact that we had beforehand taken measures at least smoothed the financial side.

However, because the subject arose herein and we became quite familiar with it, known to exist are those who for whatever reason want someone else to “take care of things.” There are those who don’t believe a trust as necessary or, for whatever reason, don’t want or cannot justify a trust due to the involved expenses and, well, the rules participants must follow as well.

As noted above, the underlying reasons relating to the use or need of a representative payee are as varied as the actions that might lead someone to question another’s mental status or, as others might crassly state, a person who is “crazier than a looney bird.”

However, already prohibited by federal law (sometimes as well as numerous state and municipal laws) is the transfer of a firearm to someone so impaired. Do we really need another law that does the same as one already on the books? Furthermore, who might enforce the newly proposed SSA rule? Are we to make the friendly SSA representative a cop, too? Or might that representative just become a snitch, instead, so that “blame” can be superficially shifted to others?

This aging fellow can remember mandatory “American vs. Communism” classes, ones actually enjoyed, for provided was food for serious thought, like, “Why did the Soviet Union’s General Secretary of the Communist Party Josef Stalin order the murder of somewhere between 20-and-50 million (yep, MILLION) of his own people? And did so uninterrupted for decades.

One can easily, perhaps even foolheartedly wonder what might have been the outcome if each among those millions had firearms and ammunition.

And while illiteracy has throughout time been a huge, nowadays largely self-imposed handicap, such seems a weak standard by which to either keep oneself from arming or to take away what time and again has proved – actually, not theoretically – as the most important means of self-defense available to those of the greater ages, never mind the importance to weaker souls.

Having no clue as to the average response time of local authorities elsewhere, yet often vitally important in each matter about which one is aware when involving law enforcement officers, in this author’s neck of the woods it takes the authorities no fewer than 20 minutes – and in two cases directly involving this author, 30-or-more minutes to arrive at the scene.

In one of the two cases, added were another 20 minutes for the LEOs needed in backup roles, including the two helicopters and a six-man swat team who actually abandoned the idea of wearing all their gear because it was taking too long. And these folks were and are no yahoos out of the wilderness. They did what they needed to do for everyone’s protection – excepting the aforementioned. Bottom line on time? 55 minutes before the door was entered. How many people might’ve been killed or severely injured in such a timeframe?

But even if it were to take just 60 seconds between a 911 hang up and a LEO’s arrival, a whole bunch of hurt, even death can be levied. I don’t know how, but we’ve become insanely fixed upon the idea of LEO response times being somewhere in the neighborhood of “right now” and instantaneously, or that cruel and unusual punishment can’t possibly be inflicted by a sadistic burglar planning to exit the scene between 2:30 and 2:45 into a 3-minute response time.

Why are the above contentions germane to the discussion of illiterates and those a bubble-or-two off plumb?

Because they are people who may well need to defend themselves in a land in which too many of its citizens seem phobic about who may or may not have guns when the reality is that only a few seriously demented souls wish to engage in a no-holds-barred gunfight. While the police are not required to report those instances wherein a crook was deterred by a once hidden but suddenly exposed firearm, accounts in media have filtered through. And such does happen. Even including little old ladies on Social Security who some might think a little looney because she lives outside of some predefined box while injuring absolutely no one in the pursuit of what she believes to be “happiness.”

Insofar as people doing stupid things (“9mm Largo” vs. 9mm Parabellum, etc.), will we – that is, we as a species – really ever effectively outlaw “stupid?” After all, traffic accidents happen throughout the country each and every day, the proximate cause of nearly each being stupidity. Surely, any reader knows that long is the list of people doing stupid things and dying, like poisoning oneself – the third-leading cause of U.S. deaths among people aged 15-24 and occurring between 1997 and 2012. And just in case one might think drug-overdose numbers are found within the “poison” numbers, they aren’t. The Centers for Disease Control note that the No. 1 accidentally induced manner of death in 2014 – across the entire U.S. age spectrum – was opiate poisonings.

A top-of-the-charts problem now going on a decade in its very public discussion and anti-opiate campaigns undertaken, who in Hades hasn’t heard the debate and warnings that have surrounded the issue? And yet 78 people on average are said to die each day from opiate overdosing – pharmaceutical opiate overdosing – according to the CDC.

And the preceding is not stupid, too!? Shall the U.S. then demand pharmacies not only provide authorities with lists of patients taking legally prescribed opiates but also inform their opiate recipients that forbidden are they in the purchase of a firearm?

Such already is forbidden. It’s on the same questionnaire that gun-purchasers must attest as accurate and complete, clearly spelling out that the simultaneous use of opiates, whether the drugs are acquired licitly or illicitly, are a no-no in the purchase of a firearm.

Lest anyone confuse or conflate accidental and purposeful with, respectively, unintentional and intentional, they are exclusive terms. “Sharon” first went down the road of dumb things done and flaming illiterates, not this writer.

And, finally, one might wish to recall a simple World War I soldier from backwoods Tennessee, a fellow named Sgt. Alvin Cullum York of Company G, 328th Infantry Regiment, 82nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army.

Sgt. York’s wartime actions the Meuse-Argonne offensive – he silenced two German machine gun nests and captured 138 German soldiers all but single-handedly near Verdun, France – ultimately enabling his battalion and allied forces to capture the strategic Decauville rail-line north of Chatel-Chéhéry, France, on October 8, 1918. Sgt. York afterward received numerous meritorious citations, U.S. and international, including the U.S. Medal of Honor.

Oh! Almost forgot to mention: Sgt. York was functionally illiterate when drafted for and upon entering the U.S. Army.

And that is that.

Get viable GOP candidates and “vote” the SOB and the Ditzycrats cabal in the state legislature out of office. An alternative, petition Congress to make NYC its own state. The latter option is far fetched, but I believe that most Americans would love to see its political power diluted.

The story reads “How will you remember Obama”, personally I will not remember him.